Carol O'Connoll's new novel "Bone by Bone" opens with a human jawbone sitting on the front porch of a house in a small California town.

The house belongs to a retired judge and the bone arrives just as the judge's son Oren Hobbs also turns up. Oren is a recently retired army criminal investigator. He quickly realizes the jawbone may well be that of his long lost brother. Hobbes then finds out it's not the first of his bones to have turned up on the porch.

Carol O'Connell told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr while the novel turns into a portrait of an offbeat town with a lot to hide, it grew out of a single idea.